After over a month of working cleaning out the apartment of my BIL, we are finished and out of there.  Most of the stuff had been brought to my house to go through at a slower pace to decide which charity would benefit the most from a donation of what is here.  The past few weeks have been filled with shredding personal papers during our rest breaks.  We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of the shredding.

July has given me another birthday.  For the last three years, my birthday has has been associated with sadness, for one of my favorite uncles was buried on that day.  My birthday brings back all the other sadness of the last three years as well.  Within six weeks of each other, I lost my best friend, my older brother and older sister, then my uncle.  The deaths didn't stop there, by fall, my cousin, whom I had been close to as young children, passed away.  Then the following spring, I lost three aunts within weeks of each other, the one aunt was a second mother to me.

These last three years have taken a toll on me emotionally.  It is difficult at best to say goodbye to our loved ones, but even more so when they pass away so close together in time.

During this time, I have also lost some online friends because I didn't continue writing to them regularly and there was misunderstanding as to why they had not heard from me.  I tend to want to be by myself when working through grief and I withdraw from the world around me. My own brush with death has taught me that friends and family are precious and the time with them is fleeting at best.  I am going to make an effort to be a better friend and more loving to the family members who are left.

I am sorry if anyone finds this post a downer, but it is what has been on my heart for some time and I feel better with putting my thoughts into words.